Mark Mawson

Mark Mawson

For the motion of the paint in the water I was inspired by the international award winning Mark Mawson. I was actually inspired by one of his videos where he shows paint expanding and water with a backing track of music complementing the movement of the paint. This inspired me because he was almost showing how the paint could be represented as a type of mood or feeling. The video itself called aqueouse movie and shows paint in different forms and shapes and lines moving slowly through the water. What interested me about this video is how vibrant and voluminous it looked and I wanted to try and recreate some aspects of this. 

IMovie

IMovie:

I have always thought fairgrounds are a sort of live performance of bright lights, exciting performers and strange and different things. When creating my iMovie video again from using the same idea as my stop motion animation, I wanted a way to represent a fairground performance by using the most simplest objects.  By using a glass of water with red and blue watercolour paint, I was able to experiment with ways of showing motion of paint through the water. I wanted the paint to represent a kind of dance that almost has a life of its own. By using iMovie, I was able to edit my video and add music and sounds to the video. I wanted to use strange unusual sounds that I created myself, such as a rush of water through a tap to represent the water in the glass and also the clinking sound is me tapping a glass with a spoon and this represents the sound of the glass in the video. I wanted my video to show that everything linked together. I edited my video to change the speed and to rewind as I think it was important to show the motion of the paint swirling in the glass of water.

Drawing on Film

Drawing on film:

I have recently thought of ways of manipulating film and how one can change the mood and colours of a film. In this lesson, we had been given a range of materials to draw over a long role of film and we had to collaborate with each other to paint the film. Painting over the film has given me ideas through my own process of development of ways I can use colour and mood as a type of movement piece.

The finished film:

Editing is an integral element of making film. In my opinion, fair grounds can be a vibrant magical place. In my film, my idea is to show how colour can transfer into movement and expression. By dipping water colours  a glass of water I began to be able to see movement and lines within the paint and it simulated types of mood though the different colours.

Stop Motion animation

Stop Motion animation:

I want to start showing in my work how I can represent fairgrounds through drawings. I have created a stop motion animation and my inspiration was one of the headdresses at the pleasure Beach in Blackpool. I wanted to create stop motion animation to represent a development of the drawing that is suggestive of a show girl costume by using vibrant tones of colour, glitter and stars.

This is my first creation of the stop motion animation. I wanted to experiment with vibrant colour and almost create a still life performance by using just paint and glittery stars. 

Drawing to Music

Drawing to Music

In the past, I never thought that sound and music could be a large part of drawing and art. Through this lesson I found that there is a way of documenting music and sound through the expression of lines and drawing.

I wanted the lines of my drawing to express the rhythm of the music and if the music was fast and up tempo the lines in the drawing would be increasingly jagged and less orderly. If the music was slow and soft my lines would be straight and neat.  I chose to use different colours to show the difference of each music track.

My drawings were presented in a large scale as I wanted to express my whole body moving with the sound of the music and transferring that onto each piece I completed.

Belle Vue

Belle Vue :

Belle Vue was a fairground based in Manchester in the 1920’s where people from the city would come and see the exotic animals.  At that time, it was a luxury and people would revel in its activities and sites. It was well known that it sold the most beer  in the UK than anywhere else around that time. The type of people that visited Bella Vue were often upper class that dressed formally for their visit. Although Belle Vue had a range of exotic animals, it was renowned for keeping them under poor conditions and animals were documented to not survive for long which may have decreased its popularity. I found this information hard to listen to in the lecture as it sounded like the animals were almost treated as disposable toys and solely an object for entertainment. I find the leaflets for Belle Vue very creative and it appeared that they advertised the fairground like it was an exotic rainforest.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach

I enjoyed the trip to Blackpool, however, I found that seeing the amusement park when it is not open to the public was a somewhat eerie experience.

Costume room for ice-skating performances:

I found the costume room particularly inspiring. The room exploded with colour and creative fantasy-like costumes and I feel that this aspect will significantly inspire my creative process. The feathered headdresses that dangled from the sealing were visually pleasing as they were incredibly free-flowing and vibrant. It was almost as if the costumes had a life of their own with dominant outline structured designs to the clothing. I would like to demonstrate in my work how I can create vibrancy and originality from the costume room and develop it in a simplistic way of using colour, movement and shape.

 

Costume workshop:

When looking at the costume workshop it made me think of how much hard work and dedication is involved in making such beautiful and elegant headdresses. I would like to adopt some of the same techniques that I witnessed in the costume workshop area. Pantomime costume, in general, does not interest me greatly however,  there are a number of areas I could utilize and develop in my own work such as the expressive use of colour and perhaps using colour as a type of performance.

Rollercoaster’s :

The different shapes and forms of the rollercoaster’s at Blackpool was of fascination to me. I like the fact that it looks like the construction is built upon layers. I have tried to develop this through my drawing of the different lines that the rollercoaster’s create. I wanted my drawings to appear as if they had motion integrated within them so when drawing I made the lines very vigorous.

At the end of the trip we were given an opportunity to go ice skating and it made me think of the  lines in the ice that are carved by the ice skates and how ice skating has a flying like quality, almost similar to riding on a rollercoaster. Ice skating could be another form of drawing as the ice represents a blank canvas and the blades almost mirror a drawing tool. The different curves and swirls that are indented into the ice are formed with the tool. I think that the ice skating rink and the rollercoaster park share similar features as both ice skating and rollercoaster’s  share an element of danger, excitement and adrenaline release.